1. Field
The presently disclosed subject matter relates to a clip for gripping a component such as a pipe, tube, conduit, wire, wire harness, etc., to attach the component(s) to a support, such as a vehicle body, and more particularly, to a two piece clip device for gripping component(s) and attaching to a vehicle body. The clip can be configured to minimize the transfer of vehicle body vibrations to the attached component(s) while also safeguarding against detachment from the vehicle body should the damper material fail. The clip also isolates the pipes from transferring noise into the body.
2. Brief Description of the Related Art
Various clamping structures are provided in vehicles to retain components such as fuel pipes, brake pipes and wire harnesses. In some cases, the pipes and cables held by such clips may resonate and transmit vibrations generated by the vehicle engine, fuel pumps, road vibration, etc. These vibrations can be transmitted to the passenger cabin and/or other vehicle components, and in some cases can be heard and/or felt by passengers of the vehicle and/or become destructive forces that deteriorate vehicle components. To reduce transmission of such vibrations, vibration absorbing clamps are used to attach certain components, such as fuel pipes, brake pipes or wire harnesses to a support such as a vehicle body to prevent the transmission of vibrations between the vehicle and the components. In these conventional vibration absorbing clamps, a single unitary clip may be provided having c-shaped receiving portions for receiving the components. These c-shaped receiving portions may be lined with a soft plastic vibration absorbing material to absorb vibrations that attempt to transmit between the component and the clip. Other conventional vibration absorbing clamps provide hard plastic pipe grippers for gripping pipes and which include vibration damping materials disposed between a base and the pipe grippers to absorb vibrations.
The unitary design of conventional vibration absorbing clamps often results in vibrations being transferred between the vehicle and components mounted on the clamps. This occurs despite the use of vibration absorbing materials. In addition, in many cases, the vibration absorbing material or damper becomes brittle due to age, sunlight, adverse environmental conditions, etc. In this case, when the vibration absorbing material or damper becomes brittle or deteriorates, the clamp becomes less effective and may actually fail because the component that is being held either slips out or vibrates out of the clamp. Thus, it would be desirable to provide an improved structure for a clip device capable of being mounted to a vehicle and capable of retaining components in a manner so that vibrations are prevented from being transmitted from the components to the vehicle or vice versa, and which provides a fail safe type of feature that would allow the clip to function even after the damper or vibration material is deteriorated or destroyed in some manner.